Cheesapalooza

I had a great suggestion from my super crafty friend Rachel ( http://brothernotboyfriend.blogspot.com/ ).  She wanted me to check out those darn vegetarian cheeses.  Well I thought that was a great idea!  I’d been a little hesitant to try them myself because,well, they’re not cheese.  They have a horrible reputation from years ago mostly because they are supposed to taste bad and apparently they wouldn’t melt.  Who wants to eat a cheese that doesn’t melt?  I thought I would check out the taste and melt factor and see which ones held up to my rigorous tests.  Actually, I just want a good grilled cheese.

DAIYA

http://www.daiyafoods.com/products/mozza.asp

  Daiya cheese is made entirely from plant-based ingredients.  That’s pretty awesome.  They also have a little note on the front of the package that says it melts and stretches.  Sounds like a pizza night!

Out of the bag the cheese looked pretty much just like traditional mozzarella.  Upon tasting it I liked the texture and the taste.  All good signs.

  Out of the oven the cheese looked pretty darn good!  Nice and golden in some spots, and it did look pretty cheesey.

This cheese was great!  It did have a slightly different taste than traditional mozzarella but nothing wierd or bad.  It holds up well in the fridge because I took the left overs to my mother the next day and she loved it too!     I will be buying this cheese again.  The only real downfall of this cheese was the price.   At almost $6.00 it was almost $3.00 more  than the icky cow’s milk version. We all know how subsidized that stuff is and sometimes the price of healthy food shocks us.   That being said, it is well worth the price if you are truly craving cheese.  I would love to try this in some other recipes, and plan on doing so soon.

Veggie

http://www.galaxyfoods.com/galaxy-products/soy-cheese/veggie/veggie-blocks/

Okay, so this cheese looked just like Velveeta cheese out of the package.  It smelled good and tasted good.  Until the next day my sister told me, “um, that’s not vegan.”  This my children is why you must never assume just because it was in the vegetarian section that it is vegan.  Read your labels.  Seriously.  Read them.  I am trying not to feel guilty about having eaten the sneaky cheese but what do I do with the other 2 Veggie cheeses that I bought to sample?  Anywho, since I did eat the cheese, and not everyone is a vegan I shall show you the results.   The cheese melted great and tasted pretty much like the Velveeta that I mentioned earlier.  I even made some delicious macaroni and cheese with it.  It was great.  Except for the whole cow’s milk thing.

Nutritional Yeast

This definition was taken from about.com.  http://vegetarian.about.com/od/glossary/g/nutyeast.htm Definition: Yellow in color and with a nutty cheesy flavor, nutritional yeast is an inactive yeast that is a favorite amongst many vegans because of its unique flavor and similarity to cheese when added to foods. Sprinkle some on hot popcorn or garlic bread, or add a generous spoonful to a stir fry or pasta sauce. Nutritional yeast is also the only reliable food source of vitamin B12, so if you’re vegan, it’s a good idea to add some to your food regularly. Nutritional yeast can be found in the bulk foods or supplement section of your health food store. You can look for either nutritional yeast flakes or powder, but be sure you don’t get brewer’s yeast by mistake, as its quite similar in appearance. In Australia and New Zealand, nutritional yeast is also called “savory yeast” or “savory yeast flakes”.

I have been reading about how wonderful nutritional yeast was for about as long as I haven’t been eating meat.  I couldn’t find it in my local, large chain grocery store; but I did find some at the health food store a town over.  There were 2 options to buy, one was in a bulk style bag that the store had packaged themselves, and the other was pre-packaged in a shaker thing for convenience.  The bulk bags had more in them and were about half the price.  Do the math and save some money.  I picked up a bag of the finely ground and a bag of the flakes.  I sprinkled some of the ground stuff onto potato wedges before baking them.

Here they are after coming out of the oven.

These were sooooo freaking good!  I practically licked the pan to get every last bit of that yummy goodness!  By far this was a surprise hit, and my daughter loved them.  If you learn nothing else from this post today, read your ingredient list and buy some nutritional yeast.  You’ll thank me later.